AstroNerdBoy Presents

Brooke McEldowney, creator of 9 Chickweed Lane  

"Why you decided to be a cartoonist?"    Being a cartoonist was not a difficult thing to do, inasmuch as I spent most of my delicate, formative years trying to plagiarize Charles Schulz in the margins of my spelling and arithmatic books until my teachers were stifling their screams with paper wads from the trash basket.  Later, in adulthood, I had been submitting successfully to magazines for a while, when it dawned on me that I might like syndication (they pay before you submit, rather than after).

"What did you do to get published/syndicated?"   Many cartoonists approach syndication every way available to them: agents, friends of friends of relatives who know somebody in the business, whatever.  I knew nobody, and didn't want to share money with an agent, so I submitted my ideas to all the syndicates simultaneously (which is perfectly legit: It's called a multiple submission).  The first strip idea was nibbled at, and rejected by all.  The second was just plain spat back at me (with implicite dry heaves from the syndicates).  The third got interest from three; I accepted the first offer, being a callow fool, but it happened to work out pretty well.

"How long did it take you to get syndicated?"    It took me around three years to finally land a syndicate (or to get one to land me).  I had been in the cartooning business for several years before that, but in magazines.

"I notice you own the copyright to '9 Chickweed Lane.'   How did you mange to do this?"   Not long ago, syndicates as a matter of form owned the copyrights of their cartoons.  When I started with United Features Syndicate, however, their habit was to own the copyright during the time of the contract, after which it returned to the cartoonist.  At Tribune Media Services it was their rather mysterious desire to have me attribute the copyright to them in my strip, while in fact I owned it.  It was, let us say, a convenient fiction.  I own the copyright now (I am with Los Angeles Times Syndicate) because they never attempted to take it away.  However, during the period of my contract with them, they have exclusive rights to the strip.  In other words, they don't need the copyright.

"What's the one piece of advice you'd give to someone trying to get a foot in the door?"   My only advice to people who want to cartoon through a syndicate is, know right off that a large syndicate (United, King, Universal) gets over 6000 submissions in a year, two of which they may decide to syndicate.  So your raw odds of success with them is 1 in 3000.  That means - to me anyway - that if you have the talent, and the desire, you must submit, submit, submit, ad infinitum.  And never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never give up.  This last sentence works even for people with no talent.

Thanks Brooke!

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Copyright 1998-Present AstroNerdBoy Enterprises.   All rights reserved.   9 Chickweed Lane is copyrighted by Brooke McEldowney.   No copyright infringment is intended upon the aboved listed comic strip.